Migrating from IPad to Android

[sy_gilana]

+++++1 on AOpenCPN....Works like a dream on my Android devices...

[dsdmedic]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

It looks like Navionics do a functional and free nav program with charts at reasonable cost.

What do you guys think, just go with that? Or is there something better?

I'm a big fan of OpenCPN, and as soon as they get to a point where the Android version is stable and effective/efficient, I'll probably be on board with moving to using it on my tablet as my primary backup tool there. However, since as of the last time I tried it a few months ago they aren't there yet, I'm still using Navionics.

I've used it for 3 years now, and haven't had any complaints. The chart prices are reasonable, especially if you're planning on using it as a backup rather than your primary navigation tool, and functionality wise it's always done everything I've needed. And the built in tide and current details have been handy, rather than having to pull up different apps or guides.

I would suggest you give Navionics a shot and see if you'd happy with it, before spending on anything more expensive.

[nortonscove]

I use Navionics on my Samsung tablet and nothing could be simpler.

[Copprhead]

Take a look at SeaIQ. Available for iOS and Android. Supports all kinds of charts - raster and vector.

[athene]

Another vote for Navionics Gold. It's not only inexpensive to buy the chart packages but the annual sub for updates is not unreasonable. I use it on a Nexus 10 (fine) and a Nexus 7 (bit cramped). I've even rigged a waterproof USB socket in the cockpit so I can have it on continuously at the helm if needed.

The only place it doesn't really serve me well is on the inland waterways, where one is better off with Google Maps - but then I suppose it was never really designed for that.

GORDON KNIGHT

[roland stockham]

Another vote for Plan2nav, good charts and very cheap. I also use Cmap for main charts so there is a question, "do I want the same on the tablet so all charts look the same" or "do I want different so a mistake on one shows up on the other and alerts me to the issue" (of course it dosn't tell you which one is right!

[Juho]

One problem to report on Navionics. It has some small errors in the data (e.g. misplaced seamarks), at least in Finland.

Another program that I have used is iSailor. It is a nice program but also it has one problem. It displays underwater rocks in a strange way (at least in Finland). It uses bold font depth values instead of showing the underwater rock marks of the paper charts.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Juho

One problem to report on Navionics. It has some small errors in the data (e.g. misplaced seamarks), at least in Finland.

Another program that I have used is iSailor. It is a nice program but also it has one problem. It displays underwater rocks in a strange way (at least in Finland). It uses bold font depth values instead of showing the underwater rock marks of the paper charts.

Finnish waters (my summer cruising grounds) are the worst charted waters I've ever sailed in. I once hit a rock where there was supposed to be 7 meters of water, and I've seen rocks awash in channels which were supposed to have 10 meters or more.

Marks and buoyage are years out of date in some places.

I don't think this is a particular problem of Navionics. You have to take all cartography with a huge grain of salt on those waters, and use your eyes, and, by the way, stay in the fairways, when you're sailing in the archipelagos.

[Juho]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Finnish waters (my summer cruising grounds) are the worst charted waters I've ever sailed in. I once hit a rock where there was supposed to be 7 meters of water, and I've seen rocks awash in channels which were supposed to have 10 meters or more.

Marks and buoyage are years out of date in some places.

I don't think this is a particular problem of Navionics. You have to take all cartography with a huge grain of salt on those waters, and use your eyes, and, by the way, stay in the fairways, when you're sailing in the archipelagos.

I don't believe Finnish waters are very poorly charted. I can't say this for sure since my experience in other countries are far more limited than in Finland. There are some areas that are not charted at all, I guess in some cases due to military reasons. I trust the charts almost 100% although I know at least one place where a shallow place was added on the chart in a place where it was not before. I also take it granted that in some shallow places outside of official and typical routes all the details are not quite exact, and rocks very close to shore are not necessarily marked since doing that would take too many years (because of the millions of rocks out there). I have knocked the bottom only when trying to enter some shallow natural harbours.

Maybe you can give me coordinates of the supposed 7m area so I can understand better what kind of a problem that was.

You said that buoyage is out of date in some places. Do you mean that maps are out of date when compared to the actual buoys? That may be the case in places where things have changed. I believe the government publishes all the changes, but it is of course not easy to add these chances to your existing paper charts. I hope latest app versions and latest official chars do contain all the changes.

Buoys could be out of place also after winter since ice may have moved them. I hope the officials do fix those problems early in the spring.

The Navionics problem seems to be Navionics specific. The official charts and some other apps seem to be more accurate (i.e. apps follow the official charts). I appears as if the Navionics data was entered manually, and as a result there could be some strange errors. I can't say anything certain since my observations are based on observations on few details only. One example of the Navionics style problems is entrance to the Björkö "lagoon" (59.902874, 21.674134). Navionics shows a rock where there should be a west seamark. And the west seamark has moved towards east.

I agree that you should trust the charts more when you are on the fairways, and be more careful when you enter shallow waters that are not in regular use. I never drive full speed to previously unknown natural harbours. Because of the very rocky nature of the sea I do not expect everything to be marked, but I expect everything to be marked in places where people are expected to sail regularly and there are no obvious reasons to expect anything but what they can see on the chart (i.e. no shallow rocks on official or other obvious routes that appear to be deeper than 5m).

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Juho

I don't believe Finnish waters are very poorly charted. I can't say this for sure since my experience in other countries are far more limited than in Finland. There are some areas that are not charted at all, I guess in some cases due to military reasons. I trust the charts almost 100% although I know at least one place where a shallow place was added on the chart in a place where it was not before. I also take it granted that in some shallow places outside of official and typical routes all the details are not quite exact, and rocks very close to shore are not necessarily marked since doing that would take too many years (because of the millions of rocks out there). I have knocked the bottom only when trying to enter some shallow natural harbours.

Maybe you can give me coordinates of the supposed 7m area so I can understand better what kind of a problem that was.

You said that buoyage is out of date in some places. Do you mean that maps are out of date when compared to the actual buoys? That may be the case in places where things have changed. I believe the government publishes all the changes, but it is of course not easy to add these chances to your existing paper charts. I hope latest app versions and latest official chars do contain all the changes.

Buoys could be out of place also after winter since ice may have moved them. I hope the officials do fix those problems early in the spring.

The Navionics problem seems to be Navionics specific. The official charts and some other apps seem to be more accurate (i.e. apps follow the official charts). I appears as if the Navionics data was entered manually, and as a result there could be some strange errors. I can't say anything certain since my observations are based on observations on few details only. One example of the Navionics style problems is entrance to the Björkö "lagoon" (59.902874, 21.674134). Navionics shows a rock where there should be a west seamark. And the west seamark has moved towards east.

I agree that you should trust the charts more when you are on the fairways, and be more careful when you enter shallow waters that are not in regular use. I never drive full speed to previously unknown natural harbours. Because of the very rocky nature of the sea I do not expect everything to be marked, but I expect everything to be marked in places where people are expected to sail regularly and there are no obvious reasons to expect anything but what they can see on the chart (i.e. no shallow rocks on official or other obvious routes that appear to be deeper than 5m).

The case is discussed here:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ty-130369.html

And there are map coordinates.

A retired Finnish Navy officer I know told me that many areas are surveyed but the survey data is not published for military reasons. The rockiness of the being of a certain advantage against invaders. Finland has been invaded in living memory, so I think we can understand this.

Besides that, not much effort is expended on surveying areas where ships can't navigate.

So you are very much on your own in Finnish waters -- you can't "drive the dot" on your plotter at all.

The nearest thing I've experienced is in the Caribbean, where a lot of coastal areas are not surveyed or have not been in 100 years, and the bottom moves around quite a bit with hurricanes. But even that is nothing like Finnish waters.

Charts of the Sea of Cortez have some chart datum problems, so that some features are as much as a mile off!

UK coastal areas, by contrast, are surveyed to an accuracy of, apparently, a centimeter, even if the bottom shifts around in some places. I've never enountered an obstacle which wasn't on the charts.

[Juho]

P.S.

I checked the Navionics webapp. It seems to have the seamark at its correct location now. The indicated route is however still at the wrong side of the seamark. (https://webapp.navionics.com/#@14&key=uurlJk~gcC)

I asked my friend to update his Navionics app chats. They had similar updates.

[Juho]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

The case is discussed here:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ty-130369.html

And there are map coordinates.

A retired Finnish Navy officer I know told me that many areas are surveyed but the survey data is not published for military reasons. The rockiness of the being of a certain advantage against invaders. Finland has been invaded in living memory, so I think we can understand this.

Besides that, not much effort is expended on surveying areas where ships can't navigate.

So you are very much on your own in Finnish waters -- you can't "drive the dot" on your plotter at all.

The nearest thing I've experienced is in the Caribbean, where a lot of coastal areas are not surveyed or have not been in 100 years, and the bottom moves around quite a bit with hurricanes. But even that is nothing like Finnish waters.

Charts of the Sea of Cortez have some chart datum problems, so that some features are as much as a mile off!

UK coastal areas, by contrast, are surveyed to an accuracy of, apparently, a centimeter, even if the bottom shifts around in some places. I've never enountered an obstacle which wasn't on the charts.

I checked the location of the uncharted rock (N 59 57.436 E 24 29.162). It seems that the official charts do not show this rock (see picture). In general Finnish charts do not show all details of this size, at least if they are close to shore in the shallow corners (too many of them, and they would clog the charts in the shallow areas). They could mark those rocks that are relevant from sailing point of view, but I guess it would be too tedious to first chart all of them and then pick the relevant ones out of the millions of rocks. It is possible that you would need rubber dinghies with all the charting equipment to chart those corners (if aerial photos and full size boats can not do the job).

When we sail to natural harbours we usually check also the available aerial and satellite images to get a better understanding of the nature of the place. Google maps seemed to have a good image of this area. The best information I could find was in kansalaisen.karttapaikka.fi.

MapSite - National Land Survey of Finland

There you can see something grey that could be an underwater rock.

You said that you saw an "east cardinal marker, just a little stick". It may be that this mark is not an official seamark but just a private mark that has been put there by the owners of the place (maybe a private person, maybe a yacht club). This kind of marks are not rare. They are not full size marks (maybe not allowed to be), and they are of course not included in the official charts.

You mentioned also another unmarked rock that was in the white "safe water" zone of the chart. That would be a much more serious problem of the official charts. If you can point that place to the officials I'm sure they will recognize the need to check their charts at that point.

[captnandy]

Dockhead, I don't think it's correct to say that Finnish charts are not accurate. As you know, the waters around here are completely different to those around most of the British Isles. Is every rock up every loch on the west of Scotland marked precisely? In Finnish waters the majority of boaters keep to the marked channels unless they have local knowledge as it is just accepted that there are rocks everywhere. Otherwise you proceed with caution! As you say, some areas maybe deliberately left "uncharted" for military reasons too, although in the last few years many of the previously off-limits military islands have been opened up to public visits.

I'd like to ask where you source your Baltic charts for use with OpenCPN? I have some vector charts that work pretty well but I'd be happier with some up to date ones! I got a pack of raster charts off ebay, but they seemed to be quite dated as well, in fact interesting from a historical perspective but not what I was hoping for. ;-p

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by captnandy

Dockhead, I don't think it's correct to say that Finnish charts are not accurate. As you know, the waters around here are completely different to those around most of the British Isles. Is every rock up every loch on the west of Scotland marked precisely? In Finnish waters the majority of boaters keep to the marked channels unless they have local knowledge as it is just accepted that there are rocks everywhere. Otherwise you proceed with caution! As you say, some areas maybe deliberately left "uncharted" for military reasons too, although in the last few years many of the previously off-limits military islands have been opened up to public visits.

I'd like to ask where you source your Baltic charts for use with OpenCPN? I have some vector charts that work pretty well but I'd be happier with some up to date ones! I got a pack of raster charts off ebay, but they seemed to be quite dated as well, in fact interesting from a historical perspective but not what I was hoping for. ;-p

I don't know about Scotland, and I certainly understand why the Finnish government would choose not to survey the incredibly complex waters around the South coast of Finland. It would be a monumental undertaking. But non-Finnish skippers be warned!


I am using official paper charts (now two years out of date), Navionics charts in the main nav system, and so far only CM93 in the laptop. I think about buying the NV Charts raster charts, which are very expensive. If you have any other ideas about cartography, I would be glad to hear them.

[Juho]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I am using official paper charts (now two years out of date), Navionics charts in the main nav system, and so far only CM93 in the laptop. I think about buying the NV Charts raster charts, which are very expensive. If you have any other ideas about cartography, I would be glad to hear them.

You could try the Sailmate app. I have it in my iPad (free), and I believe it is available for Android too. Sailmate is a simple app, but I appreciate the official charts that it has.

Anchorages were mentioned in the discussions that you referred to. Here are some links that might be useful (but not complete).

Online boating service - Guestharbours.fi - Vierassatamat
Veneilyn sähköiset palvelut ja satamatiedot - Luonnonsatamat
Gulf of Finland National Park Directions and Maps - Nationalparks.fi
Ekenäs Archipelago National Park Directions and Maps - Nationalparks.fi
Archipelago National Park Directions and Maps - Nationalparks.fi
Bothnian Sea National Park Directions and Maps - Nationalparks.fi
Bothnian Bay National Park Directions and Maps - Nationalparks.fi